Editor

With Indian contemporary art at an all time high, the Indian Diaspora artists in the U.S. have steadily gained momentum and claimed their turf. Indian Diaspora Art is alive and gearing up for its Fifth Annual exhibition entitled ‘Erasing Borders 2008: Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora’ featuring works by 40 artists. The Indo-American Arts Council’s show features an eclectic mix of diverse mediums employed by a group of 40 artists representing myriad styles, mediums and mind sets with one common bond - a shared Indian heritage that has been cultivated in the United States. Now in its fifth year, this traveling exhibition has had a successful showing in California and Brooklyn and is now opening at The Guild in Manhattan. The opening reception will be held on April 3rd, 2008 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm and the exhibition runs through April 26th, 2008.

Of the 270 submissions, curator Vijay Kumar has selected 40 artists whose work accurately reflects the diversity – religious, ethnic and intellectual predilections – of the Indian Diaspora population in the U.S. Each distinctive piece in the exhibition shares this unifying characteristic. Kumar sums it up by saying they are “works trying to ‘find home’ within the psyche.” He adds, “We are thrilled to be able to exhibit the diversity in the artists’ chosen medium of expression, gender and generation. The overwhelming number of submissions reflects the significance of the IAAC serving as a platform for showcasing Indian Diaspora artists.”

In diverse styles and from a variety of perspectives, artists express the dynamic public and private character of being Indian in the U.S. and their world, conveying personal, regional, national, and universal themes. The work of these artists is as diverse as the artists themselves, a reflection of the theme – Erasing Borders.
The artists express their ideas and visions through conceptual artwork, sculpture, mixed media, abstract and figurative paintings, photo installations, printmaking, photography, drawing and ‘nakhachitra’ - the rare art of fingernail relief drawing
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS INCLUDE:
Amina Ahmed, Fariba Alam, Salma Arastu, Shelly Bahl, Siona Benjamin, Anna Bhushan, Bushra Chaudry, Bivas Chaudhuri, Nandini Chirimar, Mareena Waheeda Daredia, Delna Dastur, Vinod Dave, Anindita Dutta, Anujan Ezhikode, Indrani Nayar-Gall, Asha Ganpat, Arvind Garg, Mumtaz Hussain, Satish Joshi, Reeta Karmarkar, Swati Khurana, Vijay Kumar, Srinivas Kuruganti, Samanta Batra Mehta, Alakananda Mukerji, Pratima Naithani, Veru Narula, Kuzana Ogg, Antonio Puri, Niema Khan Qureshi, Alka Raghuram, Sukanya Rahman, Chirag Rana, Tara Sabharwal, Ela Shah, Reuben Sinha, Anjali Srinivasan, Suhas Tavkar, Prince Varughese Thomas, Yetish Yetish
“In the twenty first century, we have witnessed a giant embrace of Indian culture in all its facets. Indian visual art has exploded on the contemporary art scene – in galleries, auction houses, private and public places. The Indo-American Arts Council is thrilled to be part of this regenerative energy by presenting forty talented artists of the Indian Diaspora who live and work in the United States,” says Aroon Shivdasani, Executive Director, IAAC.

Leveraging the momentum for Indian art, this year’s exhibition is slated to travel all across New York starting in Brooklyn in March and ending in Queens in the Fall. For schedule details and dates, please see below.

About Erasing Borders: Erasing Borders was conceptualized by Aroon Shivdasani, Executive Director, IAAC in 2004 as a platform for Indian Diaspora artists in the U.S. to get visibility and have their voices heard. Sundaram Tagore curated the first Erasing Borders exhibition in 2004 and it broke many grounds as it was the first exhibition of its kind to focus solely on Indian Diaspora artists. Due to its large success, the IAAC made it an annual exhibition. Over the last four year, Erasing Borders has grown by leap and bounds under the keen eye of curator Vijay Kumar.

About the Curator:
Vijay Kumar studied art at Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi, and at Pratt Graphics Center in NYC. Kumar has worked extensively in printmaking techniques and currently teaches etching at Manhattan Graphics Center in NYC, where he was a founding member. His work is featured in many permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the New York Public Library, the William Benton Museum of Art in Storrs, Connecticut, the National Gallery of Art in New Delhi, and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK.

About the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC):
The Indo-American Arts Council is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit, secular service and resource arts organization charged with the mission of promoting and building the awareness, creation, production, exhibition, publication and performance of Indian and cross-cultural art forms in North America.

The IAAC supports all artistic disciplines in the classical, fusion, folk and innovative forms influenced by the arts of India. They work with colleagues around the United States to broaden collective audiences and to create a network for shared information, resources and funding. The focus is to work with artists and arts organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists and arts organizations from India in their endeavors to exhibit, perform and produce their works here. For further information, please visit www.iaac.us